A Few Good Women: America's Military Women from World War I to the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

The never-before-told story of the U.S. women’s military corps: the women who fought for the right to defend their country by serving in our armed forces with full military rank and benefits—a fight that continues today for American military women who want to serve in combat support positions and in frontline combat units.

Using interviews, correspondence, and diaries, as well as archival material, Evelyn M. Monahan and Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee tell the remarkable story of America’s “few good women” who today make up more than 15 percent of the U.S. armed forces and who serve alongside men in almost every capacity. Here are the stories of the battles these women fought to march beside their brothers; their tales of courage and fortitude; of the indignities they’ve endured; the injustices they’ve overcome; of the blood they’ve shed; the comrades they’ve lost; and the challenges they still face in the twenty-first century.

U.S. military women have lived, and continue to live, the history that has helped to make and keep America what it is. Now their stories have been brought together in a riveting firsthand narrative, as inspiring as it is illuminating.

Evelyn M. Monahan, a retired psychologist, served in the Women’s Army Corps from 1961 until 1967. She subsequently earned her M.Ed. and Ph.D. at Georgia State University and her M.Div. in theology and ethics at Emory University. She worked at the Department of Veterans Affairs from 1980 to 1996.

Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee served in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps on active duty from 1962 until 1965 and on reserve duty between 1989 and 1991. She has a master’s degree in nursing from Emory University and worked at the U.S. Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Atlanta from 1981 to 2002.